Early English History

On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries - Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph - for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the US Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Washington was on his own.

Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.

This full-cast production of Orson Scott Card's newest title is finally available on audio From the end of the 18th century, Americans travelled west to find new homes and new lands. They brought with them the magics of plain people. It is from these roots of the American dream that...

Ron Chernow examines the forces that made dynasties like the Morgans, the Warburgs, and the Rothschilds the financial arbiters of the early twentieth century and then rendered them virtually obsolete by the century's end. As he traces the shifting balance of power among investors, borrowers, and bankers, Chernow evokes both the grand theater of capital and the personal dramas of its most fascinating protagonists.

A book about a tiny island with a huge history, from a New York Times bestselling author of the forthcoming book, Valiant Ambition (May 2016) “For everyone who loves Nantucket Island this is the indispensable book.” —Russell Baker In his first book of history, Away Off Shore, New York...

Debates over paper money and banking are older than the United States of America itself. Eighteenth and 19th century Americans were deeply ambivalent about paper money and central banks, and political fights over these issues were among the bitterest in American history. In fact, controversies over the country’s central bank birthed both the first (1792-1824) and second (1828-1852) party systems. Frequently, policymakers crafted responses to the crisis at hand, and as a result, they implemented policies that were inadequate to the challenges the country faced in the future.

The Hospitallers started out as caretakers of the Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem, but they soon emerged from their hospices and adopted a new military role that shaped the history of medieval Europe forever. This audiobook seeks to explore the curious rise of the Hospitallers from their humble origins to one of the most powerful institutions in medieval Europe.

In A Constitutional Culture, Adrian Chastain Weimer uncovers the story of how more than a hundred years before the American Revolution, colonists pledged their lives and livelihoods to the defense of local political institutions against arbitrary rule.

The early years of English settlement in America were characterized by catastrophe: starvation, disease, extreme violence, and ruinous ignorance. Seasons of Misery offers a provocative reexamination of the British colonies' chaotic and profoundly unstable beginnings, placing crisis at the center of the story. At the outposts of a fledgling empire and disconnected from the social order of their home society, English settlers were both physically and psychologically estranged from their European identities.

In the early decades of the sixteenth century, mariners from across Europe forged a vast seasonal fishery along the coasts of the northwest Atlantic. Long before there was Newfoundland or Canada, Europeans called this floating colony Terra Nova, and they laid the foundation for a history of extracting food and fuel that extended into the twentieth century. Once one of the largest European colonies in the Atlantic basin, Terra Nova has never before been considered in its historical entirety or in a wider Atlantic context.

What accounts for the rise of the state, the creation of the first global system, and the dominance of the West? The conventional answer asserts that superior technology, tactics, and institutions forged by Darwinian military competition gave Europeans a decisive advantage in war from 1500 onward. Empires of the Weak argues that Europeans had no general military superiority in the early modern era. Sharman shows instead that European expansion is better explained by deference to strong Asian and African polities, disease in the Americas, and maritime supremacy earned by default.

One of the first longtime sober members of AA talks about the people, events, and development of ideas and practices that created AA, including Ebby, Bill Wilson, and the Oxford Group; Hank Parkhurst, Ruth Hock, and the writing of the Big Book; how AA got the name Alcoholics Anonymous; Jack Alexander and the Saturday Evening Post article; The 12 Traditions; and more.

History of the Early Settlement and Indian Wars of Western Virginia is an account of the various expeditions that took place in the region up to 1795. It also includes biographical sketches of Col. Ebenezer Zane, Major Samuel M'Collach, and other pioneers.

In this eye-opening chronicle of scientific research on the brain in the early Cold War era, the acclaimed historian Andreas Killen traces the complex circumstances surrounding the genesis of our present-day fascination with this organ. The 1950s were a transformative, even revolutionary decade...

A guide to the world’s most delightful, useful, and useless information (and how it came to exist)—a hilarious and insightful book for fans of Randall Munroe’s WHAT IF?, from the creator of @depthsofwikipedia Wikipedia is a splendidly extensive record of everything that matters, and also...

In the beginning, North America was Indian country. But only in the beginning. After the opening act of the great national drama, Native Americans yielded to the westward rush of European settlers. Or so the story usually goes. Yet, for three centuries after Columbus, Native people controlled most of eastern North America and profoundly shaped its destiny. In Facing East from Indian Country, Daniel K. Richter keeps Native people center-stage throughout the story of the origins of the United States.

The essays gathered in The Early Imperial Republic move beyond the question of whether the new republic was an empire, investigating instead where, how, and why it was one. They use the category of empire to situate the early United States in the global context its contemporaries understood, drawing important connections between territorial conquests on the continent and American incursions.

A groundbreaking account of how the Roman Empire shaped the life and death of Jesus, overturning centuries of historical beliefs around the world—from the New York Times bestselling author of The First Clash. “Skillfully guides readers on a journey through the complexity and tumult of the...

In 1805 and 1806, Aaron Burr, former vice president of the newly formed American republic, traveled through the Trans-Appalachian West gathering support for a mysterious enterprise, for which he was arrested and tried for treason in 1807. This book explores the political and cultural forces that shaped how Americans made sense of the uncertain rumors and reports about Burr's intentions and movements, and examines what the resulting crisis reveals about their anxieties concerning the new nation's fragile union and uncertain republic.

From the critically acclaimed author of The Widow's War comes a captivating work of literary historical fiction that explores the tenuous relationship between a brilliant and complex father and his devoted daughter—Thomas Jefferson and Martha Jefferson Randolph. After the death of her beloved...